Alexa Keeps your Data, China Silences, and More.

It’s Friday July 12th. Welcome to ThisWeekInPodcasting, where we discuss current weeks. Podcasting news and Tips all in under 10 minutes. This episode is provided by Sounder.fm, the Smartest way to Podcast. Let’s get started.

This week, Alexa holds your data forever and even shares it,  China silences Podcast Apps, Top Mistakes Podcasters Make, & the top random podcasting thought of the week.

Alexa has changed the way audio is consumed and enjoyed. They have also forced others like Google into the audio market. All of this competition is making the audio market better.

However, in recent news, it has come to our attention, that Alexa keeps your voice data and audio transcripts forever and even shares it with third parties. In May CNET uncovered that Alexa keeps user’s audio interactions even after people have deleted it. Following this report, Sen. Chris Coons, a Democrat from Delaware, sent a letter to Amazon, demanding answers. Amazon's vice president of public policy, Brian Huseman, sent a response. In the letter, Huseman tells Coons that Amazon keeps transcripts and voice recordings indefinitely, and only removes them if they're manually deleted by users. However, this is a little misleading.

Huseman also noted that Amazon had an "ongoing effort to ensure those transcripts do not remain in any of Alexa's other storage systems." But there are still records from some conversations with Alexa that Amazon won't delete, even if people remove the audio. I am sure we will hear more about this in the near future.